A ride to Lilly Lake on the Peak to Peak Highway

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Beautifully sunny and clear skies for us in Colorado today, with forecasted highs in the high 40s and low 50s.  I rode out of my home neighborhood around 10:20 AM and due to this late start, decided to see how road conditions were on the Peak to Peak Highway.

I took the E-470 Tollway to bypass the Denver Metro Area to the north and then took US287 to CO7 which after a slow transit through Boulder, got me into the foothills to the SE of Nederland.  The road becomes CO119 or Boulder Canyon Rd at this point.  This is quite a nice motorcycling road which 18 miles later dumps you at the town of Nederland, home of the "Frozen Dead Guy"  Lots of twists and turns and while there was some sand/gravel in the center portion of the lanes, it was not too bad.  I didn't encounter any snow or ice the whole day, just wet patches of road where snow was melting across the roadway.

I took CO72 north out of Nederland and was at this point starting my ride on the Peak to Peak highway.  While scenic, the real views of the mountains are not evident on this road.  Lots of forests on both sides of this nicely paved highway and curves, lots and lots of curves to keep you smiling until you reach the road's junction with CO7.

I turned left or North on CO7 and soon enough I was rewarded with my first view of snow-capped mountain peaks.

 

The view somewhere south of Allenspark

Mount Meeker is the first massive snow-capped mountain one sees along this stretch of the Peak to Peak Highway.  Here's some pictures I took of it as I neared the small settlement of Allenspark.

 

 Getting closer to Allenspark and Mount Meeker

 

 Mount Meeker 

The view of Mount Meeker from the northern edge of Allenspark

After cruising through Allenspark, CO7 leads one northwards and you soon leave Mount Meeker behind.  However, you then get view of Longs Peak as you pass Meeker Park which is located a few miles south of Lilly Lake.

 

 Longs Peak

 

 The Twin Sisters Mountains

Continuing on, I soon was at Lilly Lake and pulled over into its parking lot to get the following pictures of the lake the mountain across the highway from the Lake.

Far as I can tell, unnamed mountain across the highway from Lilly Lake

 

 Lilly Lake

 

 It was 1:36 PM at this point and time for me to start heading back home.  I turned south out of the Lilly Lake parking lot and retraced my route on CO7.  On the way south, I stopped by the Saint Malo Retreat Center to take these pictures.

The small church of St. Malo, that's Mount Meeker in the background

 

 A statue of Saint Malo on a small hill near the church

 

 The Twin Sisters in the distance

After this point of the day, it was non-stop riding on CO7, traversing the twist and turns of the St Vrain Canyon Road which leads one to the town of Lyons.  From Lyons, I took US36 southbound until I reached the People's Republic of Boulder.

After a few miles of city traffic, I took CO7 east towards Lafayette and from there it was south on US287 to the Northwest Parkway portion of the E-470 super slab.  It was getting near rush hour and I really didn't want to deal with Denver traffic.  It was worth it to pay the tolls and there were not too many cars on the slab and Natasha was purring as we cruised along at 60 mph!

I got home with no incidents, a bit tired from the riding which ended up being perhaps 7 hours in the saddle and covering around 180 miles of road.  Not too bad.  Great day for a ride, hope you had a chance to ride as well.

Update: Added the below pics from my own camera, all the above pictures were taken with my wife's Nikon D500.